Baddest Bad Boys(64)

Have to help Mac.

She forced her eyes open—seconds later? Minutes later? She tried to pull herself to her knees. Blood dripped onto the moss like red rain. From her…face? Shoulder?

“Mac!” She couldn’t see through the blood on her face, her eyes. She brushed at it, desperate now. “Mac, where are you?”

“I’m here, Tommi. Right here.”

Then his hands were on her, all over her, stroking, probing, holding. “God, if you weren’t hurt, I’d kill you myself. That was crazy!” His voice was low, angry and thick with concern. He tore away her jacket sleeve, looked at her arm, and let out a long, harsh breath. “Just a graze—but bleeding like hell.” He picked her up, cradled her in his arms.

“Reid?” she croaked, barely finding her voice.

“Out cold. His head collided with my rifle butt. He’s belted to a tree.” He shifted her to a more comfortable position against his broad chest. “To hell with him. He can rot there, until the cops get here. I’m taking you back to the lodge.” He kissed her bloodied forehead. “But you’ll have to come clean, sweetheart, about the embezzling. You won’t have a choice.”

She nodded her still-spinning head. “No choice,” she parroted and passed out against his shoulder.

A cop who looked no older than eighteen arrived by boat within the hour—Mac had advised him against attempting the flooded road. Mac led him along the forest path to where he’d left McNeil, propped up and lashed tight to a cedar. The young cop was briskly efficient. With Mac’s help, he handcuffed the cursing, threatening McNeil in the stern of his patrol boat, and in minutes was back at the lodge to take Tommi’s statement.

“Tommasea Violetta. Interesting name.” He closed his notebook. “Never heard it before.”

Tommi figured, given his age, there were lots of names he hadn’t heard before. Propped up on Mac’s bed, a bandage on her forehead and her arm wrapped and resting on her stomach, she smiled at him. “I think they were trying to make up for the Smith.”

He nodded, his expression serious. “Doctor Kenning will be along shortly to take a look at that, although it looks as if you were a lucky young lady. Just took a patch of skin off, is all.”

Tommi’s smile deepened at being called a “lucky young lady” by someone who probably did his first shave a month ago.

A few minutes later, she heard his patrol boat roar away from Mac’s dock, presumably with a trussed-up Reid McNeil in the stern.

Tommi put her head back and closed her eyes, gingerly touched the bump under the bandage on her forehead.

A big, warm hand closed over hers. She opened her eyes when Mac’s weight settled on the bed beside her. “You’ll probably get one hell of a shiner.” He propped a knee on the bed and played with the hand he held in his lap.

“Thank God for M.A.C.” Her quip didn’t make her less afraid to look at him and see what was in his eyes. Their time together was over. With Reid gone, there was no reason to stay. From here on, it was all about good-byes. At that thought her chest seemed to fill with lead.

“Why did you do it? Put yourself at risk like that?” His voice was low, troubled. “What in hell were you thinking? I could have lost you.” His eyes were angry, confused, and filled with something she couldn’t identify…fear?

She glanced aside, looked for the words that so needed to be said. Words harder to give than your body. “I did it because…I couldn’t imagine waking up in a world without you in it.” Her eyes were dry, her chest thick, cluttered with nameless emotions.

Silence.

Mac’s throat worked as if he were swallowing stones. Finally, he lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed her knuckles, and said, “About the sex…”

Tommi’s heart tumbled, and her throat closed. It was always about the sex.

“What’s between us has gone past that.” His eyes lightened, and he smiled at her in a way he never had before. “Truth is, Smith, I fell for you the second I laid eyes on you. Trouble was, I was thirteen, you were eighteen, and there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do about it.”

She held her breath. “And now?”

“Now I can.” He let go of her hand and braced himself over her, a hand on each side of her hips. The same position he’d taken when he’d come to her after her bad dream. “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want us to end. I want to take what’s between us and build on it. You okay with that?”

Tommi’s heart didn’t make it to her mouth, but she’d swear it lodged halfway up her throat. She shut her eyes against the tears, the ache of relief. I’m such a sap for this man. “I’m very much okay with that.”

“There’s something else that needs to be said.” His expression darkened. “I should have trusted you, Tommi. Should have trusted—what I felt for you.” He stopped. “When you stepped in front of me today, my whole goddamn life shut down. I kept thinking, what if I lost you—when I’d just found you.”

“Then don’t think.” She touched his chin. “Just kiss me, Mac. Just kiss me.”

He gestured toward her bandaged arm. “I’ll hurt you.”

She shook her head, used her good arm to pull him toward her. “Hold me, Mac, hold me forever and love me”—she stopped, the words, so long withheld, poised on her tongue—“the way I love you.”